1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to enhanced vehicle authentication systems for taxi vehicle authentication, and more particularly to method and apparatus for real time visual based taxi vehicle authentication for customers and drivers and methods of implementing the same.
2. Background Information
Smartphone application-based taxi services, sometimes called on-demand transportation services, utilizing non-standardized vehicles (i.e., the taxi service drivers will often use their own vehicles) are increasingly popular with UBER, LYFT, FASTEN, HAXI, VIA, DIDI CHUXING, OLA CABS, GRAB, SIDECAR and GO-JEK generally being representative examples (although not all these services compete in every jurisdiction). UBER is the largest and most well-known within the United States, although DIDI CHUXING has a larger number of customers overall.
The “customers” of smartphone application based services are sometimes references as users, however in the smartphone application-based taxi services both the taxi passenger and the taxi driver can properly be considered as users of the app. The present application attempts to distinguish these application users by referencing them as customers and drivers herein. Additionally there is a class of customer application users of smartphone application-based taxi services that are not actual taxi passengers, namely those that use the app to order taxi services for others such as for caregiver transportation of third parties under their care. In this limited case those ordering taxis for others on the app are referenced as custodial customer or caregiver customer, and the actual taxi passenger will be referenced as a passenger customer, with the caregiver customer, the passenger customer and the taxi driver all being “users” of the app.
The phrase “taxi service” is sometimes hotly contested in certain jurisdictions particularly those with common carrier licensing requirements, resulting in many arguing that the above listed on-demand transportation services are not “taxi services” within a given jurisdiction's legal definition. The present application is intended to utilize the phrase “taxi services” in the broadest sense without the need to characterize or distinguish the above identified on-demand transportation with what has been identified as traditional taxi services. As will be apparent in the following description, the present invention is designed for smartphone application-based taxi services utilizing non-standardized vehicles, but it is also applicable to traditional taxi services, and others such as limousine driver services and water taxis (as representative examples).
One issue with customers of smartphone application-based taxi services utilizing non-standardized vehicles is customers cannot easily and quickly identify the vehicle that is picking them up. Customers are often sent identifying information such as the make and model of the vehicle, but this is often insufficient for easy and rapid vehicle identification. Southwest Airlines (Southwest) spoofed this problem in their “Wanna Get Away?” ad campaign spot called “Bank Heist”, where a customer of a smartphone application-based taxi service mistakenly gets into the back seat of what he thinks is his ordered taxi, but what is in reality a get-away car involved in a bank heist. Two bank robbers, complete with masks and a duffel bag of recently purloined bank cash, jump in on either side of the customer and are surprised to find him there. With the car peeling away from the scene, one bank robber points at the befuddled customer and yells to the driver “I thought we said no hostages.” Die packs in the duffel bag explode covering the bewildered customer, accentuated by Southwest's trademark line “Wanna get away?” The consequences of failing to properly identify an ordered vehicle are seldom as dire as portrayed in this ad, but this ad works on some level because of the existence of this problematic issue for customers.
Within the meaning of this invention, Vehicle Authentication Systems are the methods currently utilized by most smartphone application-based taxi services, such as transmitting the make and model of the vehicle to the customer. The known Vehicle Authentication Systems can include very specific car and driver identifying information that they have on hand, such as the license plate number, driver license ID number of the driver, taxi medallion number of the driver, or even VIN number of the vehicle; but these are not particularly helpful for easy and rapid vehicle identification of particular vehicle in ordinary use. Attempts have been made to improve this part of the customer's experience and provide what will be called herein as “Enhanced Vehicle Authentication Systems” (EVAS) for easy and rapid vehicle identification by customers.
In 2011 Waterford, Ireland taxi drivers signed up to be part of a pilot (EVAS) scheme aimed at giving any member of the public the ability to confirm the identity of a taxi driver in real-time using their smartphone. Each taxi driver placed a QR code just above the door handle on both rear door windows making it accessible for the customer to scan the code from the footpath. QR codes were also placed inside the vehicle on the back of the front seat and on the dashboard of the vehicle. Each QR code was unique for the public service vehicle and was scanned by the customer on his smartphone to verify the vehicle and the driver. This EVAS supports the need for a real time taxi vehicle authentication for customers, but this system does little to truly facilitate initial identification since the customer must first find the vehicle before it can be scanned and verified.
In 2016, LYFT introduced an EVAS known as the LYFT Beacon. This allowed the driver to have a light-up beacon, which LYFT calls “amps,” on the dashboard of Lyft drivers' cars beginning Jan. 1, 2017 in New York, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Los Angeles. In this EVAS, the driver's beacon lights as a specific color once the vehicle comes near the customer. The app allows the customer's smartphone to light up in that same color, which the customer may hold up so the driver can identify the customer.
In the last quarter of 2017, UBER introduced their own “beacon” based EVAS that mounted to the windshield, and further added the functionality where the customer selects the color.
The internal beacon approach of the Lyft and Uber brand EVAS has at least four serious drawbacks: (1) In large event venues such as concerts, sporting events, airports, parades, New Year's Eve celebrations, etc., the color selections are limited. If there are multiple taxis in the same proximity, the odds that two customers or drivers select the same or similar color is high, which would exacerbate the problem rather than solve it. Either a customer seeing their chosen color would be directed toward the wrong vehicle before realizing it belongs to another customer, or a driver could pull up to the wrong customer who is holding the same or similar color. (2) The internal mounting of the beacon in each of these EVAS can hinder or limit the field of view of the driver. And, the smaller the beacon to avoid hindering the driver's view, the less noticeable it is to the customer. (3) When used at night, such internal beacons can cause glare off of the windshield and also light the interior of a vehicle making it much harder for the driver to see out of the vehicle. In addition, the placement of the light in the passenger side of the front windshield exacerbates this issue by impairing the driver's line of vision toward the potential customer. (4) A fourth drawback is regulation compliance with these EVAS platforms. Some jurisdictions do not allow mounting extraneous materials on the dash or on the windshield of a vehicle due to the vision obstruction concerns. In addition, some jurisdictions do not allow forward-facing lights on a vehicle other than approved headlights, fog lights and the like due to potential conflict with emergency vehicles. An EVAS platform that fails to comply with regulatory restrictions raises issues for smartphone application-based taxi services that have a history of battles with traditional taxi services.
There remains a need in the art for an effective and efficient EVAS platform for real time visual based taxi vehicle authentication for customers and drivers for smartphone application based taxi services, particularly those utilizing non-standardized vehicles